Page 101 of Perfect on Paper

“Huh. Well, I’ll stop then,” Brougham said, transferring oysters to the plates I held out.

“You don’t have to do that,” I said. “Just, do whatever you want. It’s whatever.”

He met my eyes and broke into a grin. I wasn’t even sure if I could call it a rare grin anymore. He seemed to offer them up with more and more abandon as time passed.

Outside, Ray and Brooke were leaning into the middle of the table, talking. Their faces seemed serious. They both jumped back and straightened at the sound of the door opening.

Ray grabbed the menu from the table and scanned it. “Oysters, huh?”

Brougham and I placed the food down, and Brooke snatched the menu from Ray. “Figs, asparagus, chili, chocolate, and strawberries? Darcy!”

“What?” Ray asked.

“They’re all aphrodisiacs. Darcy, you’re sick.” Brooke burst out laughing. Ray went a lovely shade of magenta.

“How am I sick? I’m just setting the mood!” Besides, aphrodisiacs aren’t scientifically real. It was just kind of funny.

“Trying to make us horny at someone else’s house isweird!”

Even Brougham started laughing at this. I rolled my eyes and bit back a giggle. “Grow up, guys. Now eat.”

“Yeah, eat your emotionally manipulative meal in silence,” Brougham deadpanned, and I dragged him off by the arm.

After the appetizers, it was time to start the show. Brougham and I had set up a projector and screen on the patio, and Ainsley, a video-editing genius because of YouTube, had helped me put a short movie together.

The screen lit up.

PART ONE: THE GHOST OF RELATIONSHIPS PAST

Ainsley appeared on the screen, wrapped in a cream-colored sheet we’d scavenged from the closet. “Oooooooh. I am the ghost of relationships past. Tonight, you will be visited by three ghosts. They’re all going to be meeeeee. I don’t get paaaaaaaid enough for thiiiiissss.”

“Very atmospheric,” Brougham whispered from our spot at the window of his second living room, looking outside. We were kneeling back-to-front on his leather sofa, folding our elbows on its back.

“First, take a look at the relationship that was, so your memories aren’t clouded by aannnggeerr. AANNNGGEERRRR! WOOOOOO!” Ainsley waved the sheet around.

“And you approved this,” Brougham commented lightly.

“By the time she showed me it was too late for a reshoot, okay?”

Now came a slideshow of photos and videos, set to “Only Time” by Enya. Ainsley’s choice. By the time we’d mined Snapchat, Instagram, and Ray’s personal collection, we had more than enough happy memory clips to fill a several-minutes-long video. Outside, Brooke burst out laughing asshe and Ray watched the video. I wasn’t quite sure if she was laughing at the clips and the fond memories, or at the video itself. Oh well. Soldiering on.

Brougham and I moved on to prepare the main course. This one was particularly difficult to set up, as it involved holding the plate just so, and placing it a little closer to Brooke on the table than to Ray. As planned, Brooke, being closer, lifted the silver lid off of the plate, and let out a scream so bloodcurdling I was worried Brougham’s dad might rush out. Brooke scrambled out of her seat.

On the tray sat a remarkably realistic black widow spider figurine I’d found on Etsy. I shoved it in my pocket. “Enjoy.”

Brooke, gasping like she’d run a marathon, stared at me. “What thefuck?”

“Just wanted to liven things up.”

“Why are wefriends?” she shouted, pressing a hand to her chest. “I could’ve had a heart attack!”

“Brougham knows CPR; you’re fine.”

Ray and Brooke exchanged an incredulous glance, and Brougham and I returned inside.

There was a reason for the spider, of course. One of the first things I’d learned in my studies: fear and adrenaline remarkably mimic the sensation of falling for someone. Always go to a horror movie on a first date, if possible.

Spiders work, too.

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